Are Chickens Carnivorous?

When talking about third world countries, we as Westerners used to use words like “backwards” and “uncivilized” to describe the conditions we’d find there. Ethiopia is neither uncivilized nor backwards, and I am grateful that these derogatory terms are no longer politically correct nor used to describe countries as majestic and noble as Ethiopia. However, Ethiopian culture is still very different than our own, and in two cultures so different, there are bound to be instances where our two cultures have almost opposing customs, viewpoints, or traditions that probably spurred the whole faulty notion of “backwards” in the first place. Here are some of my favorite of those instances.

"Finger Food"

In America, we have a very dignified table presence. We eat with utensils, have appropriate dinner conversation topics, protect our plate from the intrusion of others, frown upon those who don’t have their elbows in the right spot, and are mortified if you happen to need to say something important while your mouth is full. One of my favorite things about Ethiopia is that most of that is thrown out! You eat almost exclusively with your hands, are expected to share your food with anyone who walks by (even strangers), can keep your elbows wherever you like, and say what comes to your mind whether your mouth is empty or so full of injera that all that comes out is a muffled “ghdsfalufdsaufhierwiaofji”. Ironically, one of the only table manners we have in common is that it’s still rude to lick your fingers, even though in this country you always eat with them. While I do like this style of eating, partially because I already dislike most table manners in the states, it’s mostly the intimacy this eating style brings you that makes me so happy. Sharing food is a pretty awesome way of both getting to know someone and showing those you know how much you care about them. A piece of food to the face every once in a while is a pretty small price to pay for that bond.

“Hey bro. Wanna go play soccer and then listen to some Celine Dion?”

Another interesting and sometimes hilarious difference between our cultures is the differences in gender roles. America has a pretty descriptive picture of the ideal man. He’s tall, handsome, strong, excels at sport, and has wicked charm to match. Every guy strives to fit this image for at least some period in their life (I gave up once I realized the only one I’d be was tall and handsome), and most fail because these qualities are generally out of our control. But we do adhere strongly to those behavioral things that make us more “manly” and scorn those that do not, especially when it comes to music. Here in Ethiopia, no such scorn exists when it comes to music. Ask any guy who their favorite singers are, and they will tell you Celine Dion, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, and numerous other artists that most guys in the states wouldn’t be caught dead jammin out to. There’s nothing quite so entertaining as a group of grown Ethiopian men singing “I Will Always Love You” as they’re walking down the street.

"Women of Steel"

On a closely related note, guys aren’t the only ones with some gender role differences. While I was growing up, I was taught to always treat a woman like a lady. We are to hold the door open for them, walk closer to the street, and always carry the heavy stuff. I won’t get into the debate about whether this is chivalry or chauvinism, but either way the expectation often exists. Here, it doesn’t. The women do just as much of the heavy lifting as the guys, walk wherever they want, and the concept of door holding does not exist. I’ve met some tough old women here who will offer to help me carry my stuff whether they are 5 or 80, and it’s pretty cool.

"The Chicken vs. The Cat"

Even the animals get in on the action! The other day I walked out of my house to see why our cat was mewing so pitifully. There he was in the middle of the compound crying pitifully watching one of the chickens. Upon further inspection, I was surprised to find that the chicken had somehow stolen a large bone the cat had been eating meat off of… And he was eating it instead! Honestly, I don’t blame the cat too much for being scared. The chickens on my compound are some crazy crossbreed between the local scrawny domestic chicken and a wild prairie hen and those things are beasts!

Those are just a few differences between our two worlds, but they’re enough to make me love this place so much I’m sticking it out for these two long years. Who knows what other cultural differences I’ll keep discovering!

Please sir, I want some Wings N' More..

I’d like to start off by saying Happy New Year! According to the Ethiopian calendar, it is now the first month of 2005. In our year it’s now September, which means I’ve been keeping this blog for almost an entire year (WHOOP! for surviving almost a year in country). In that time I’ve tried my best to follow the Peace Corps recommendations for my blog and keep it about Goal 3: Sharing Ethiopian culture with Americans. We’ve talked about Ethiopian food, transportation, holidays, what I’ve learned, and my overall adaptation to this amazingly beautiful country. But today, we’re going off the books and talking about one of my absolute favorite subjects: hot wings.

Coming to Ethiopia, I knew I was going to be making a lot of sacrifices. I was going to give up being able to see and talk to my family, hang out with my friends, watch TV, and take hot showers. But for the most part, I knew I’d be able to adjust. I’d been away from my family for a long time before, I’d make new friends in Ethiopia and be able to reconnect with my old friends when I got back, I could bring TV with me on a hard drive, and hot showers I figured were overrated anyway (they’re most definitely not). The one thing I worried about, and rightly so, was if I would ever be able to live without hot wings. The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is not very well.

My love affair with hot wings began one fateful day somewhere around the age of 11 or 12, a couple years before the years of teen angst started (I didn’t have teenage angst, but a friend of mine did). Up until that time, my favorite food had been spaghetti for as long as I could remember. Then one Saturday, my dad came home with a curious paper bag. The bag was hot and the bottom greasy, and on the side was a curious logo; “Wing Stop” the bag proclaimed. I’d never heard of this Wing Stop before… What were hot wings? And why were they stopping? My initial reaction was suspicion, but as soon as my dad opened that bag and the smell hit me my mouth began to water and my heart began to sing. Somehow in that moment, a tradition that was both lovely and monstrous was born.

You see, that meal was such a success that my family decided to make a tradition out of it. Every Saturday since, Saturday has been “Hot Wing” day for my family. Most Saturdays would go like this:

1.       Wake up by 9am - Dad never liked us to waste daylight, even on a weekend.

2.       Commence yard work - Lots of it. Cutting grass, picking weeds, edging, trimming, raking, you name it, we did it. Dad had us believe that this manual labor was good for us. It would make us strong. Well I’m 23 and still thinner than most toothpicks, so I think there were ulterior motives.

3.       Keep doing more yard work – It may be good to stop for a short lunch, but once you’ve filled your belly and cooled down, head back into the jungle.

4.       Pretend to be done, but do more yard work - Around 2 or 3 when we thought we were done, my parents usually remembered at least six more things we could do that day.

5.       Make and eat hot wings while watching a movie - When the yard work was finally done, we’d all pitch in to make (or buy) delicious hot wings, which we’d sit down and eat together while watching a movie.

6.       Go to bed - Usually around 10pm. Wouldn’t want to fall asleep in church the next day.

I don’t know why my parents decided to put the best and worst parts of my week in the same day, but that’s pretty much how an average Saturday would go. I think it was my parents’ trying to experiment with subliminal messaging. Well it worked. To this day, I still can’t see grass clippings without my mouth watering a little in expectation of the hot wings that were sure to follow. Once I left for college, my family continued the tradition, though I was only there on the occasions when I came home for the weekend. My first few years saw a decrease in my hot wing consumption, but once the drive thru Wings N’ More opened only 5 minutes from my apartment senior year, consumption level returned to normal. My roommates can definitely confirm this.

And now here I sit in Ethiopia, not having had hot wings in almost a year and not sure I can make it another year without. If I think about them, my friends talk about them, or I even see the words “hot wings” in print, my mouth starts to water. As a practical joke, one of my good friends sent me a key chain shaped like a hot wing that looks eerily realistic. I was so unprepared that I actually nibbled it in a moment of weakness to see if it might be real. Yes, I admit it: I tried to eat the hot wing key chain. And I am not ashamed. I’d do it again. And have. Almost once a week ever since.

Now, some of you may be asking, “Bernard! We get it! You like hot wings. But did you seriously just spend an hour writing an entire blog post about them? What about your family and friends? Why not write about them instead?” First off, I do not merely like hot wings. I love them. And secondly, yes I did. Because for me hot wings are more than just about food. I’ve eaten hot wings so many times in my life, that for me many of my fondest memories and best moments occurred with a wing in my hand and hot sauce on my cheek. I’ve eaten them with my family while watching movies and while on road trips all over. I’ve eaten them with friends at Buffalo Wild Wings on fun nights out, and while being lazy in the apartment with the roommates. I’ve shared them with my dog who I love to give scraps to, and my toilet when I’ve had a few too many. I’ve even talked about them with people here in Ethiopia, who have no idea what I’m talking about but are enthusiastic to learn all the same.

For me, hot wings represent everything I love and miss most about America. For me, hot wings are a way I can dedicate a whole blog to the things I love the most and actually be able to finish without descending into incoherent blubbering. For me, hot wings are a way to reflect on how I’ve grown into the person I am today. When it comes down to it, for me, hot wings are a simple way to say “I love you.”

A Time of Transition

Dehana Dikum?!?

So it’s been a slow past couple of weeks. A lot has happened to be honest, but I’ve just been lazy in trying to keep my blog up to date. I’ve been lazy with a lot of things lately. I should work on that…

At any rate, the saddest news out of Ethiopia right now was the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi a couple weeks ago. The news left us all here in shock: I don’t think a single person in this expected this to happen, Ethiopians and foreigners alike. It’s been a terribly sad time for us all here. Meles was a great leader who did a lot for his country, and we were all sad to see him go. It seems the entire country has been in mourning the past few weeks, and people are only just now beginning to recover from their loss. The good things Meles did for this country will forever be remembered by the people who loved him. Ethiopians are a great and determined people, however, and, while this was a great loss, will continue to strive to become a country of excellence even as they did under their leader. RIP Meles.

There was one more, smaller good-bye this week in the form of the VSO volunteer Mike. Michael Bobei was a VSO volunteer in this town for 3 years, and this week he finally put the finishing touches on his project and left Maychew. He’s spent the past few years building a state of the art network for the technical college he worked at, and now Maychew technical college is the first college (outside of universities) to have a campus wide network in all of Tigray. It’s a huge accomplishment, and Mike deserves major props for all the difficulties he had to go through to get it done. Very few volunteers get such a massive project done before they finish their service, and Mike will forever go in the hall of fame for his sacrifice. Maychew will miss you Mike! Come back soon!

Other than that, I’ve just been hangin out in Maychew for the most part. School will start soon, so one of my good friends Inge and I have been working hard to put together an “Environmental Club Manual” that has activities, information, and advice for running environmental clubs in Ethiopia. The manual is well underway, and we hope to have it finished in the next month or so. In addition, my good friend Getachew came back to visit!!! I missed him a lot, and it was really nice to get to see and hang out with him for a while again.

That’s about all the exciting things that have happened recently. I recently decided to rejoin twitter as well, so look me up there @nardosmalls too! I know this blog was a bit short and somber, but the next blog post will be pretty entertaining (hopefully), so stay tuned!

You Simply Can't Rhyme With Purple

Dehan doe Wiilkum?!?

I say good afternoon because that’s what time it is in the US, even though it’s almost ten o clock at night here in Ethiopia. Another day has come and gone here in the land with Thirteen Months of Sunshine, and again I look back on the day and wonder how it took so long when it’s already over… Every day seems to inch by at a snail’s pace, but every night when I look back on the day I never seem to know where the time has gone. Proof in point? I have no idea how, but I have already been here in Ethiopia for almost 11 months!

At any rate, you didn’t come to read about my lack of understanding of how time works in this country. You want to know what’s new, and for me that has been summer camp. Over the past six months or so, PCV’s all over have been working hard, preparing and setting up all different kinds of summer camps in various regions. Some of them were environmental camps, some were designed mostly for girls, and others tried to focus on HIV/AIDS and health. From July 29^th through August 5^th, I was lucky enough to get to help out with the Tigray summer camp, a health based camp held in Wukro, about 45 minutes north of Mekele. It was one of the best, most exhausting weeks of my life.

These summer camps are special and interesting for a number of reasons. You see, summer camps are a foreign concept in Ethiopia. No one has them here. So setting it up and recruiting campers can be tough, because Ethiopians don’t really understand what they’re signing up for. Nevertheless, 34 campers trusted in their respective volunteers and came to see what a summer camp was all about. We wanted to really give them something to take home, so every day we had a “theme” that we talked and taught them about. The topics included leadership, HIV/AIDS, the environment, gender roles, nutrition/cleanliness, and more. The sessions were informative but interactive, and the campers really seemed to learn a lot from them. I had the privilege of leading leadership day and several of the cross culture sessions, where we shared about Ethiopian and American cultures, and it was great to see how much the campers really understood and liked what they were learning.

In addition to all that, we had the opportunity to expand the horizons on another important theme: FUN. Simple games that we grew up with, like connect four and puzzles, excited them beyond belief. We couldn’t keep them off of the arts and crafts table, where they had the opportunity to express themselves creatively in ways their schools just don’t allow for. Sports like soccer and basketball they knew, but baseball they’d never even heard of! Our last day was the ultimate lesson in summer camp. We had split the campers into color groups the very first day (I got to lead the color group purple seen on the left, hence the name of the blog), and so our last full day we decided to have a field day complete with sack races, dizzy bat, eating competitions and more. The competition was fierce, but in the end everyone had a lot of fun. Later, we had an American style dinner of tacos and sloppy joes, followed by s’mores around the campfire for dessert.

It was one of the best weeks of my life, and I believe it was so for many of the campers too. On the last day there wasn’t a single bus that pulled away without crying campers. To be honest, I had a hard time not tearing up myself. The excitement of teaching all those kids so many new things… there’s nothing like it. I often felt like I was Aladdin opening up a whole new world to Jasmine, what with the way many of the campers gave me blank stares as I tried to show them what a s’more was or how to hold the baseball bat correctly. And to already hear stories of those campers going out into the community and applying what they learned at camp? Why, there’s no better feeling in the world.

One Step at a Time...

Dehana dikum?!?

So its been forever since my last blog post and for that I apologize. There’s been a lot going on over here in Ethiopia, and I’ve finally now had a chance to catch my breath and catch up on things I’ve been neglecting.

Since my last blog post, I feel like I’ve been around the world and back again. I spent the first two weeks of June in Hawassa, Addis, and Wukro working on stuff for Peer Support Network, a committee I’m on that supports Peace Corps volunteers in country emotionally, and for the regional summer camp I’ll be participating in next week. After that, I took a brief vacation in Germany and Italy, visiting my family and best friend respectively. It was a great vacation, full of surprises (my mom and grandma had no idea I was coming), fun, and quality time with people who meant a lot to me. I got back 2 weeks ago, and since then I finished up a project I started before I left (a tree planting with two schools that planted over 600 trees!) and, of course, fought off a welcome back sickness (thanks Ethiopia).

So even though I’ve had such an amazing past month and a half, why is it that I’ve kinda been in a slump the past few days? I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. I was kinda hesitant about going on the vacation, because I was worried about how it would affect my return. Unfortunately, it has bummed me out a bit. I really, really miss my family, friends, and home countries (America and Germany) a lot, and while the vacation gave me a rare chance to see them again, it really reaffirmed what I missed about them too. I tried not to get to comfortable while vacationing, but despite my best efforts I got used to it again only too readily. Coming back to Ethiopia wasn’t difficult, but knowing I’m still going to be here for another year and a half is.

You see, I’m one of those people who’ve always wanted to see and do a lot. Ever since I first discovered there was a world bigger than my backyard in Texas I’ve wanted to see it, and my to-do list only gets bigger with time. I want to see and do everything! I want to go back to Germany for several years to perfect my language skills. I want to get lost in the wilds of Alaska. I want to run with the wolves in Minnesota… spend a cold, rainy afternoon in Seattle… track the elusive jaguar in the heart of the Amazon…. Australia, Costa Rica, London, Botswana, Nepal, New York, Barcelona… The list of places I want to see and/or live in goes on for a while.

You see, traveling is one of my favorite things to do in the world, but every time I travel I simply get more and more excited for what I will do next. I’m like a kid in the candy store, who, when he finally gets those skittles he’s been waiting for all week (since he’s been a good boy), is already thinking about the snickers he will ask for next week! Normally, the skittles I’m eating at the time are so good I only think about the snickers occasionally and spend most of my time enjoying the rainbow. But alas, I am struggling to do that right now. The pace of life here in Ethiopia is so much slower with so much free time, that I spend a lot more time anticipating what I want to do in the future.

But wait, didn’t you post a blog a few months ago saying you love the slow pace of life and have learned to live in the moment? Indeed I did, and yes I do regress at times (this being one of those times). For those of you who know me, you know that I am a busybody. It doesn’t matter how well I adapt to this slower pace of life, I will always crave the hustle and bustle of a busy, crazy lifestyle. And I am realizing that there’s nothing wrong with that. Even if I do get frustrated with the pace at times here and worry that I won’t be able to do everything I want to in life, I’m still enjoying every moment of it in the end. Because every time I try to get angry at this place, it gives me something to smile about again. I’ve been working on this post over the past two days. At the start of the post I was angry and bored. Since then I’ve shared beles (a delicious cactus fruit) with friends, watched a movie with my family, and butchered my way through a Tigrena conversation with at least 5 people I didn’t even know. For all my griping and complaining and teen angst (for you Taylor, though you never read these), I will miss the crap out of this place when I leave. I love Ethiopia, so for now I enjoy the great moments, ride out the bad, and look forward with great anticipation on everything to come.

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

It really is. I know it’s a cheesy, overused line from one of the greatest love stories ever told (at least in some people’s opinions… or maybe just in mine), but the line is used so much because of the truth it has to it. This past week I had to part with two very good friends, and though I was incredibly sad to see them go (and losing them both in the same week REALLY sucked), I couldn’t help but reflect on the time we had together and be grateful. Today I want to dedicate this post to these two outstanding individuals and the difference they have made to my Peace Corps experience.

Last Monday, I had to say good-bye to my best friend and tutor, Getachew. I met Getachew during site visit way back in October. He was already best friends with Mike, the awesome Canadian VSO volunteer in town, and it was only natural that Mike would introduce us. I liked Getachew from the start: he was smart, kind, and just as excited to have me in Maichew as I was to be there. Of all the Ethiopians I’d met in country, he was the first one I automatically hit it off with. Ethiopian culture is so different than our own, that it makes it difficult to make great friends. The obvious language barrier combined with the overfriendliness, lack of similar interests, and completely different sense of humor (Ethiopians really do laugh at the strangest things) makes Ethiopians fun to hang out with, but only for a little while before things get awkward. Getachew was different, partially because he has met and befriended many foreigners in his life but mostly because he’s just so dang awesome. He’s funny, smart and hard-working, understands that foreigners are not that touchy-feely, and knows that when we politely decline kolo (a delicious snack of roasted grains) it’s because we really don’t want any and asking 568 more times will not change our mind.

Once I moved to site for good, Getachew was instrumental in my acclimation to Maichew. He helped me out so much in the beginning, going to market with me, teaching me Tigrena, introducing me to people, and just showing me around in general. We hung out so much over the past few months, and really got to be close friends. What impressed me so much about Getachew was his kindness: he would drop whatever he was doing and help me whenever I needed it. An English teacher at the local preparatory school, he even invited me to class to help out, an activity I enjoyed tremendously. So when Getachew told me he wanted to apply to be an LCF (language and culture facilitator, the people who taught us PCV's the language and culture during our first three months of training) and that he wanted me to write him a recommendation letter, I was only more than happy to. When Getachew got the job about a month later, I was ecstatic! I was sad because this meant he would move and I would lose a good friend, but I was more happy than anything that this kind and clever friend of mine was finally getting the opportunity to see new places and do something great. He was a hard worker, and deserved this amazing opportunity he got.

Christina I met about a month after I’d been living in Maichew, during the Tigray Olympics. She was a young, 19 year old German who just finished school and wanted to do something amazing before starting college. Through connections her godfather had in the Catholic church, she came here in October (eerily, only a day before we arrived) to be an English teacher at the local Catholic primary school. Over the last 8 months, she’s been teaching English and helping out with other projects in the community, volunteering her time and money to help out. It’s quite amazing some of the projects she’s been able to help with (including a seed distribution project in the community), and even more amazing how well she incorporated into the community. Christina loves kids, and was so awesome with them even though some of these kids are nasty. I’m sorry but it’s true (the 5 year old in my compound has blown snot rockets bigger than I ever could). Yet Christina would always shake their hands and play with them, no matter how dirty they were. She knew so many people in Maichew, and was another instrumental person in helping me meet and incorporate into my community.

And, of course, she was also a great friend. Since we became friends we hung out almost every day. Life in Ethiopia is rough (remember the emotional roller coaster?), and it was great to be able to have someone to talk, joke, and just relax with when things weren’t going great. It was such a relief to have a good friend in town who understood the frustrations of living in a culture so unlike your own. And she was just cool in general. We spent a lot of time together hanging out, talking about the future, practicing my German, and discussing what was going to happen next on One Tree Hill… Not that we watched it every Monday thru Friday when it came on at 5:30pm on FoxMovies. I mean she would, but I would go outside and do push-ups (which is why I did so well in the push-up competition). She left Friday morning, and I was definitely very sad to see her go.

Sometimes I feel like life is just a series of good-byes. You meet someone, you become friends, and before you know it you’re saying good-bye to them, whether it be temporary or for an unknown length of time. It has especially felt that way to me lately, what with how much I moved as a kid, then leaving for college, and then four years later leaving for here. Every time I meet someone really awesome, it seems our time is up before we really even started being friends. This really bothered me at first, but then I came to realize the blessing it was because of an important revelation I had. Though I’ve said a lot of goodbyes, I’ve also been able to meet and learn a lot from quite a variety of people. Meeting all these different people from different cultures has really made me better as a person, because it was what taught me how important it is to look at the world through a different pair of eyes other than your own. I’m grateful for everyone that’s been in my life, no matter how short, because all of them taught me or gave me something important. Getachew showed me the best part of Ethiopian culture, which is its kindness. During my hardest, most frustrating moments when I’m sick of Ethiopia and annoyed with every person here, I reflect on the overabundant kindness and genuine love those like Getachew have shown me and remember how good these people ultimately are. Christina was what helped keep me sane: she was that person I could have fun with, vent to every once in a while, and talk with about life outside of the Peace Corps when you just need a break. And even more, her love and helping attitude was a constant reaffirmation of my own goal here, which was to help others and be a part of something bigger than yourself.

It sucks to see people go, but in the end you have to be grateful for the time you were given. Christina and Getachew made my first few months here in Ethiopia easier and more fun than I could have ever imagined. I love them both for it, and will miss them every day they’re out exploring and making the world a better place to live.

"Fishikta" means "Smile" in Tigrena

The past week has been a VERY busy week for me; probably one of the busiest I’ve had in country yet. That’s because this past week I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer for one of the coolest NGO’s out there: Operation Smile.

For those who don’t know what Operation Smile does, they go all around the world fixing cleft lips and cleft palates. Cleft lips and palates are deformities of the lip and palate, and can range anywhere from a very slightly misshapen lip to a person missing their palate altogether. While not usually life threatening (except in the case of missing palates), they often create severe speech problems and can even make it difficult for these people to be accepted by their community. The problems can usually be fixed by surgery, and so Operation Smile is currently working in dozens of countries to help people with these problems. These “missions” last on average about 10 days, and during that time a team of surgeons, pediatricians, nurses, dentists, volunteers, and locals work as hard as they can to help as many people as possible. In some countries, the operation smile missions have become sustainable and are run completely by local doctors and volunteers. More often than not, however, people from all over the world volunteer not only their time but also their money to be a part of this. Yes, even the surgeons actually PAY to help others!

So how did I fit into this amazing organization? My job as a Peace Corps volunteer on this mission was simple: help out wherever was needed. And boy did we work. We helped with paperwork, running errands, moving stuff, and even translation! The first two days were screening days, where we screened over 200 patients about their medical history and speech abilities in order to determine if they were a candidate for surgery. Patients that were malnourished or sick were turned away the same day, because putting them under anesthesia would be too dangerous and might result in their death. They were asked to return in October for the next mission, giving them another chance to be helped. Unfortunately, there were still only a limited number of surgery slots available and too many potential candidates. The third day was all about telling those people who couldn’t be helped to come back in October. One case in particular was tough, when a young child who was missing his palate entirely had bad results from his blood tests and was determined too risky to operate. When we told the dad that his child was too sick to be helped at that time, he broke down in front of us in one of the most heart-wrenching things I’ve seen. Even though we encouraged him to come back in October, he wasn’t sure he could afford to come all the way back across the country (as he was from the south). Operation Smile helped him out as much as they could and sent him on his way, but it was a rough day for all involved.

Nevertheless, surgeries began on the fourth day and continued for five or six days after that, and what an amazing time that was. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, we often have to spend a lot of time putting projects together. They can take months or even years of work before completion, and even then projects can still fail or may take several years after the volunteer has left to fully come into fruition. This can be tough, because we’re constantly frustrated by how little results we see. Operation Smile was amazing in that we saw how much it helped people right away. So many kids were being helped every day, and it was such a wonderful thing to see the reactions to their new faces. I was even allowed to go into the operating room and watch the operations underway! The recovery after surgeries was painful and would take a while, but overall there was a great feeling of happiness and accomplishment for all involved.

Overall, the week was exactly the boost I needed. Times can get tough here, and sometimes in our most frustrated moments we tend to lose sight of the fact that we’re here to help people. Although I was extremely exhausted after my week in Mekele (we joked that we went from 30 minute days to 12 hour days overnight), I’m so, so, so grateful to Operation Smile for the opportunity to see the difference they made in people’s lives. This is a great organization, and if you ever get the chance you should check them out at www.operationsmile.org today. This experience will literally change your life forever.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Hey again!

Over the past 7 months I’ve been keeping pretty regular blogs. The topics vary greatly, but in all of them I constantly mention about how much I’m learning about myself… without actually talking much about what I’ve learned. And when my parents asked me about this the other day, I didn’t really give a great answer. So I decided to dedicate this post to talking about myself and trying to put into words what I’ve learned about me. Wait, really?  A blog post all about you Bernard? Isn’t that kind of…. Egotistical? It very well may be, but I think it will really help me in the journey of self-discovery I’ve embarked on here in Ethiopia. Especially because I won’t just be talking about the good things. I’ll be talking about the bad and the ugly things too.

The Good: I can be a really patient person. You need a lot of patience and flexibilty in Ethiopia, because you’re dealing with a culture that is very, very different from your own. Work is much, much slower, people have completely different social etiquette (that includes lots of staring and no personal bubble), and neither of us can understand each other about 75% of the time. Dealing with that takes a lot of patience, not only with others but with yourself as well. Going from America to Europe is a slight culture shock, but going from America to Ethiopia is a shock equivalent to a lightning strike. You’re not ready, you didn’t know it was coming, and oftentimes you find yourself babbling incoherently while everyone stares at you.

The Bad: I’m not a good housekeeper. Cleaning, cooking, and maintaining the house was never something I had to do all by myself before (I always had roommates or family), so I didn’t realize how much work it was. I knew how to do all these things (though clearly I didn’t know how to cook well), but to have to do them every day by yourself kinda sucks. I always loved my mom and I knew she worked hard, but this has definitely allowed me to see mothers everywhere in a new light.

The Ugly: The patience I mentioned earlier does not exist when little children are around. I’m getting better, but for the first 6 months I occasionally wanted to go on a Halo-esque killing spree when the little kids in the town annoyed me. Every time the 5 year old in my compound so much as looked at me wrong, I considered accidentally locking her out of the compound one night and hoping the hyenas found her before her mom did.

The Good: I’m pretty good at learning languages and adjusting to other cultures. Learning Tigrena has been tough, but I am incredibly proud of the progress I’ve made since I got here in October. A year ago, I didn’t even know this language existed, and yet today I can actually tell people that in Tigrena. Plus, I’ve really adapted well to Ethiopian culture, and can even handle the things I’m not super comfortable with. I do have to say that this is probably no real testament to my skill. I was really lucky in that I was raised in a bilingual house and moved a lot when I was little. I was exposed to these things from an early age, which probably helped me considerably.

The Bad: I’m really good at doing nothing. I’m not sure what it is, but I just can’t seem to do productive things with my time (outside of work). I have SO much free time here in Ethiopia that you would think after four months I would have picked up a constructive hobby or two. But that’s not the case. Sometimes at the end of the day when I look back trying to figure out what I did all day, I realize the only accomplishment I can really chalk up is that I finished another season of Friends.

The Ugly: I’m really out of shape. Now, Ethiopia is much higher up than where I lived in Texas, so I was going to lose some endurance regardless. But even so my condition is ridiculous. Since I’ve been here I’ve had a number of things point out how bad it really is. During IST, I got last place in a push-up contest. Before that, I helped push a horse cart about 100 feet up a hill and had a cough the rest of the day because of it. And to top it all off, I tried to start Insanity once, a really intensive workout program that’s all about keeping track of how much you’ve improved… In a lot of the exercises, the people in the video’s improvements were higher than what I could do in the first place!!! It’s sad really. But you know what the absolute worst part is? Ask me if this pitiful display has actually inspired me to work out yet. Because it hasn’t.

The Good: I am not a quitter. I never noticed this before, but when I commit myself to something I do it. I have committed the next two years of my life to Peace Corps and it is simply not an option for me to quit. Even on my worst days, when I’m annoyed with people here, bored out of my mind, and really, really missing my family and friends back in the states, the thought never crosses my mind that I should quit. I wanted to come here, and I am going to see it to the finish. And of the things within my control, there’s nothing that will prevent me from doing it big.

The Bad and The Ugly: Frankly, I could go on forever in these two categories. In the interest of staying positive (and also for my own self esteem), let’s just end on a good note, eh?

So that’s just a few of the major lessons I’ve learned since I’ve been here. The list could go on and on, but I just wanted to give you some insight on how Peace Corps has enlightened me. I feel so much more in tune with myself and confident in who I am here, and I’m so grateful that I decided to embark on this grand adventure. It’s been one of the greatest decisions of my life.

"There's No Place Like Home..."

So I know it’s been quite some time since my last blog update, and for that I apologize. It’s been a hectic few weeks here in Ethiopia, though, and it’s only in the past few days that I’ve finally been able to breathe again.

The culprit for my busyness was IST, or In-Service Training. It was just over two weeks of really intensive, but extremely helpful, technical training for our group. We learned about how to start/manage tree nurseries, how to effectively design and implement projects, how to build effective soil and water conservation structures, and much, much more. We had training every day for 15 days (including weekends)! Training was in Hawassa, which is deep in the south of Ethiopia. Since I am far to the north, there was a lot of traveling involved over several days to get us there and back (including a brief detour to visit our old host families in Addis Alem).

All of the traveling to and from IST definitely wore me out. While I love Ethiopia, my least favorite thing to do in this country is to travel. Everything about it spells nightmare for anyone daring to test the waters. From the incredibly small buses (which I’m convinced were actually designed for pygmies, since I have yet to find one that even fits Ethiopians, who are quite short), to the annoying people in the bus station screaming “WHERE ARE YOU GO?!?” as soon as you are within a 25 foot radius of the entrance, to the insane amounts of switchbacks, unplanned stops, and puking people that plague every 4 hour journey of 120 km, traveling in this country just plain out sucks.

Now, I know I’m no guru when it comes to patience, but I would say that I have grown quite patient indeed over my 6 months here in Ethiopia. I can spend hours at a time just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen (which is often the case when you are travelling or simply bored at site) quite easily without really freaking out or getting angry. Needless to say, however, after travelling so much over the past few weeks, I was just about fed up by the time I was on the final stretch. I spent 9 hours on the bus in just ONE day while travelling, so by the time I was almost to Maychew my patience was stretched less than thin. People were annoying me all day, my knees hurt, I was angry and extremely tired, and I just missed the comforts of the US. I wanted to be home. I knew that the next Ethiopian who even looked at me wrong was about to experience some ferenji wrath unlike anything they had ever seen before…

And then I finally got to Maychew. And I saw all the friends and people I knew. And kids called my name in the streets. And I sat my stuff down in my house and fell onto my bed with a sigh of relief. And my second family told me just how much they missed me and invited me over for food and bunna. And I thought about how there really is no place like home.... And it was at that moment that I knew no matter how much I missed my family, friends, food, and everything else the US has to offer, for now I feel at home right here in Maychew, nestled under the watchful gaze of Mt. S’ibet. And I was happy.

God Made Dirt and it Don't Hurt... But Guns Certainly Do

So I know it’s been a while since my last blog post and for that I apologize deeply. However, there were several reasons, all of which were out of my control. The first reason was that the computer in my fan died for about two weeks. It has since rejuvenated itself a little, but it is still functioning poorly and I have been limiting my use of my computer until I can get the fan replaced (which may not be for a while).  In addition to this, I have been pretty busy with a language camp Peace Corps gave us and with working on finishing my CNA report for Peace Corps.

But despite my problems, my time over the past few weeks has been really awesome. As I just mentioned I’ve been super busy working on my report, which has allowed me to get to know lots of other people in the community that I otherwise wouldn’t have known. In addition, I’ve actually been busy! It’s been great to actually have lots of stuff to do and not have long periods of sitting around. Not to say that my current standards for “busy” fit what we would describe as “busy” in the United States, but for me it has been nice regardless.

There are a lot of standards that have changed for me here, especially when it comes to what I define as “dirty”. It’s funny, because some of the first signs that you are adapting as a Peace Corps Volunteer are when your standards begin to change. When I first got here, I had a personal bubble, wanted to take showers every day, and definitely did not eat food fallen on the floor. Today, none of those apply anymore. Personal bubbles do not exist in Ethiopia, and it finally doesn’t bother me when an Ethiopian grabs me by the arm (or even hand!) when we’re walking places or touches me affectionately in a way that would creep most Americans out. It still makes me laugh sometimes to think how I used to stare at things that I see every single day now. Dirt has also become the final ingredient in pretty much every dish I make, because I have yet to make a dish where I haven’t dropped something on the floor, wiped it off, and tossed it back into the pan. Ironically, I haven’t been sick as much since I started cooking… I’m convinced the two are related. And showers? What does that word even mean anymore? The armpit “sniff check” has now become a cough check. When I sniff and it makes me frown, I know I’m still good for a day or two. It’s when I sniff and start to cough that I know I should probably shower soon.

Now that I’ve thoroughly grossed you out, you should know that while I am exaggerating a little bit (I shower twice a week guys, so don’t freak out) I really have warmed up to Ethiopia so much. I love this place and everything about it. Nothing really scares me anymore…. Well except for that one night during language training. I didn’t even tell this story to my parents (because I figured my mom would freak out less reading than hearing this story?) but me and a couple of friends had a bit of a scare during language camp. We had a movie night, and decided we wanted to watch Hotel Rwanda because several of us hadn’t seen it. Well the movie is clearly super intense, but it also made us a little paranoid since we’re so much closer to where this happened than when I watched it at home. As we were walking one of the girls back to her house after the movie, we heard a loud “BANG” coming from the direction of the field in front of her house. We paused to listen more carefully and heard several more bangs followed by loud screaming.

Now we had JUST finished watching Hotel Rwana, so that was all it took for us to turn right around and start scuttling back to the house we had just come from… Well all except for one volunteer who decided he needed to see what was going on. When we realized we were missing one, my friend went to go fetch him back while I stood on the corner keeping an eye on the two guys and the girl knocking on the gate trying to get back in the house. That was when two random Ethiopians decided would be the best time to emerge from the shadows in front of me: with guns. They were coming roughly from the direction of the loud bangs, so I immediately got really scared and started to back away slowly. I must have startled them, however, because they looked up at me surprised and told me to come here. I didn’t think that was such a good idea and kept backing away…. Until one of them kinda sorta pointed their gun AT ME. This is where it got both super scary and super funny, because I start to freak out and in my angst somehow learned to speak Tigrena fluently. I tried to explain to them that I was actually a foreigner and that I had nothing to do with the bangs, but they didn’t seem to believe me because I look Ethiopian and was speaking Tigrena. The girl behind me sees the guns and hears me telling them that I am a foreigner and starts to freak out and bang on the gate, while our friend inside the gate (which is locked from the inside) is also banging on the gate and screaming at the maid to open the door. This dramatic moment passes in a very long few seconds before I finally regain my English and convince the dudes that the danger is elsewhere. Soon after, our guy friends return, the maid opens the gate, and we all scurry to safety.

In the end we weren’t in any real danger. Turns out someone was drunk and shot a gun off in the air a few times to impress their friends inside their compound, scaring all their neighbors. The rest of the dudes with guns were off duty police trying to figure out what happened. I'd like to stress that I wasn't really in danger, and have never before or since ever felt unsafe here in Ethiopia. This did not happen in the town I live in, and I love at how secure and content I feel here: I feel more secure walking the streets at night here than I ever would in the states, even in a small town like Killeen, Texas. Nevertheless, it was a crazy moment for all involved, and it will definitely be a story for me to tell over and over again. I can’t wait to see what news crazy stories I will be able to share in the future!

My Own Personal Coney Island Cyclone

Emotional roller coasters are an interesting thing. Even if you know you’re on one, the highs and lows still take you by complete surprise every time. On a real roller coaster you can see the drops coming. You feel yourself getting tenser and tenser on that first, long upward climb, dreading and welcoming that moment when you’re at the top and all you have left to do is to take the plunge. You’re ready for the fall. You live for it. But when it comes to emotional roller coasters, you can never be ready for the falls and they are not even close to anything you could call fun. You can be cruising along all content when all of a sudden you are falling without warning, not knowing the reason why or how long the fall will be.

Over the past few days, I found myself on such a fall. As much as I love Peace Corps, this job can be incredibly difficult in the sense that you rely almost entirely on other people to accomplish your work. As much Tigrena as I know, it isn’t near enough to accomplish things on my own. So when my counterpart is busy, as he often is, I spend lots of time wandering the city and trying to find something to do. My counterpart has been incredibly busy lately and so I accomplished very little at work. Most of my friends were also busy, and so I spent a good part of the time just hanging out by myself. Now don’t get me wrong. I always have a lot of free time and I usually enjoy time with myself. But the past few days were much slower than the norm, and I was running out of ways to entertain myself. By Sunday, I was out of things to do, and beginning to feel pretty… how do you say... “blah”. I was unmotivated, incredibly bored, and had little idea of how to pull myself out of my funk. I tried to shake it off, but in the end I just went to bed and figured I’d wake up feeling better the next day…

But Monday, I felt even worse. I had one of those days where I woke up and just knew my day was going to suck. Unfortunately, this time it actually did. I accomplished nothing at work, missed all my friends and family in the US a lot, couldn’t focus and did terrible during my Tigrena lesson, and was just tired and cranky all day long. By late afternoon when my counterpart called to cancel our trip into the field the next day, I was done. I had done little to no real work for several days now, and I was becoming incredibly frustrated with doing nothing. I went home and shut myself in my room so that I could wallow in self pity to make myself feel better. Fortunately for me, my family decided they wouldn’t let me and bugged me for several hours until I finally began to lift a little out of the funk I’d been in. By nightfall I was laughing and no longer a sourpuss, and, while I still had no idea how I was going to accomplish any work this week, I was determined to try. They always say that the early bird gets the worm, so I set my alarm for 530 and decided I was going to go for a sunrise hike the next day to see what animals I could record for my inventory.

The hike yesterday was the best decision I could have made. I don’t know how I can ever live without mountains again, because the majesty of mountain peaks, gorges, and valleys in the early morning light is unparalleled. I hiked for over 2 hours, watching the colors of my surroundings change from shadows full of mystery to vivid greens, blues, browns, and greys that I knew held the secrets of life. I sat and listened to the birds waken, singing their songs of thankfulness and happiness to the sun for returning to warm them. I felt the trees and rocks around me begin to stir, groaning and stretching from lying still for so long during the night. And I watched the river race noisily over the rocks, taking the knowledge whispered to it by the mountain it originated in to an unknown destination miles from where I was. And as I sat there watching, hearing, and listening to all these creative things that really only existed in my head, a phrase often quoted to us by our trainees echoed once again in my head. Just like the quiet, sleepy hike that I had somehow turned into my own rendition of Pocahontas’s “Colors of the Wind”, “this experience would only be as much as I made out of it.”

And so, with my new determination, I returned to the city to have what had to be my busiest day in Ethiopia so far. I had a productive meeting with my counterpart. I visited the high school again and finally met the environmental club teacher that I had been wanting to meet for a long time, where we made plans for me to help out with the club in the future. A teacher I met at the high school accompanied me to the Agriculture College I’d also been dying to visit, where I was given a tour and had the opportunity to establish a relationship with the vice dean with the promise that we would collaborate on projects in the future. I also visited a primary school I hadn’t yet been to and also met their environmental club leader and vice principal. By the time I went home that day, I was exhausted but happy, content with the many possibilities I had just opened up.

You see, while emotional roller coasters are difficult, they are even better than the wood and metal contraptions. While you are at the top of a real roller coaster, you aren’t looking around to enjoy the view. You are anticipating the upcoming fall, maybe even wishing you were safely on the ground again. The great thing about not seeing when the fall will come is that you have time to pause and enjoy every moment of the view at the top, a memory that will last forever no matter how many times you fall.

Community Integration? Check!

So today’s post isn’t as intense or dramatic as my last post, but I hope you still find it worth reading. Since we last spoke there hasn’t been much going on. The Olympics finished up on Saturday and my friends returned home, leaving me with an empty house for the first time in over two weeks. As sad as I was to see them go, it was nice to be able to really clean my house and have the house to myself for a little while and rest from the crazy weeks before. The mourning period for Ephraim is in its final stage: they took the tent down on Saturday, but people are still visiting often and the family will continue to sleep outside until this upcoming Saturday. The atmosphere in my compound is much less sad than before, however, and I have been able to spend a lot more time with my family the past few days.

The best part of my week has been realizing how successful my integration into the community has been. I have met so many people and children by now that I can no longer make even a short trip down to my favorite suk (or store) without hearing people cry Kibrom or some sort of attempt at Bernard. I guess I actually forgot to mention that I have a new name here in Ethiopia. It has been very difficult for Ethiopians to say my given name, so my best friend here decided to give me a new Ethiopian name: Kibrom. It means “respect for your father and mother”, or something along those lines, and I have had much more success introducing myself as that than when I use my own name. Ethiopians, who have to be the world masters at exchanging greetings as much as they do so, in my community have really started to get to know me, which is one of the best feelings in the world. I have gotten pretty good at recognizing faces too, though my name recollection is lacking by far. It’s difficult not only because I learn so many names every day, but also because it’s the same 10 names. Though Tigrena is a very expressive and wordy language, it seems to have fallen short in the name category.

What’s even better is that my interactions are no longer entirely in English either. I have slowly but surely been improving in Tigrena and can hold very brief, superficial conversations with people I meet on the street. Luckily for me, most people ask me the same general questions again and again, so I’ve gotten really good at the typical conversation of asking about work, family, and where I am going. Even more exciting, I finally started my Tigrena lessons with Getachew this week! We’ve been wanting to start lessons for forever and something always came up, but now we’ve finally managed to make time. The lessons should help my language skills a lot over the next months, and I can’t wait to see how much I’ll improve. I’ve always enjoyed different languages, so this is super exciting for me!

Work has also been more successful this week. I started visiting the language school every Wednesday night to help improve the English language skills of the students there. It’s a really fun class with cool people who love to learn and ask a lot of difficult questions. In addition, on Tuesday my counterpart and I walked to a nearby rural community and I was able to interview a few farmers for my CNA. We plan to do the same again next week in a different community, so I should be finished with data collection for my report by next week! From there I just have to finish up with some writing and I will be ready for our In-Service Training a month from now.

Overall, it has been a very productive yet relaxing week. Things are really picking up, and I’m definitely very excited about what the future holds for me here in Ethiopia. As always I miss everyone in the US terribly, but I think I can officially say that I am finally settled here in my new home and couldn’t be much happier!

A Week of Contrasts

So how’s life? I have had an absolutely fantastic week. The Maychew Olympics are still going and are only just now starting to wrap up. I’ve watched enough handball, volleyball, basketball, and badminton to last me through the end of the year. I have spent an amazing time hanging out with friends: Peace Corps volunteers, Ethiopians, and the German volunteer and her visiting friend. We’ve talked, eaten, joked, laughed, and watched the Olympics together, and it has been an absolutely great time. Yesterday, I spent three hours talking German with my friend, during which she graciously shared with me schwarzbrot and good german chocolate, and had my first HOT shower in almost two months. Throughout it all, I’ve even managed to get some work done, which has left me very content with life here in Ethiopia. Even more content than before, which I didn’t think was possible.

But in addition to the great things that happened this week, tragedy also struck my compound late Saturday afternoon when we received word that Ephraim, the eldest son of the parents in my compound, died in a car accident. As is Ethiopian tradition, a mourning tent was constructed outside of our compound in which the family, friends, and members of the community have come over the past 5 days (and will continue to come for several more) to publicly mourn the loss of a family member. Needless to say, the scene at my house has been very sad and difficult over the past few days. Though I’d met Ephraim once, he was old enough to live on his own and I never had the chance to really get to know him, unfortunately. I’ve felt awkward and intrusive during most of this mourning period, because I didn’t know him well enough to really feel the loss of his sudden departure nor did I know the culturally appropriate way to pay my respects to him. This time has still been sad though, because it breaks my heart to see the family that I have come to love so much hurting so deeply. In fact, more than anything I’ve felt completely helpless, because, after all, what can you really say to comfort someone who has just lost a son? Or a brother? Or a best friend? The words “I’m sorry” don’t seem to really grasp the emotion or comfort you want it to in Amharic or Tigrena either.

This past week has been the ultimate example of the stark contrast between life, which we often take for granted, and death, which always comes to soon. And the maddening part about it is that it’s hard to fully appreciate life or death when you are surrounded by both. Is it right to bask in the warmth of the sun shining brightly in the cloudless sky when your brother is silently crying beside you? And how can you smile at the promise of new life from a wedding, when it’s being held not fifty yards from where you sit with a wailing mother bemoaning the end of one? Even now as I type this blog I can just hear family and friends crying under the bright songs of the birds cheerfully chirping right outside my window.

In the end, life and death are extremely powerful ideas that none of us can ever fully comprehend though we all try to. The fact of the matter is, one day we will all die. And as depressing, cold, and terrifying as it may be, it’s comforting to know that when all is said and done, life goes on.

Hyena Hunting, the Superbowl, and a Blindfolded Race

Selam doe? Dehana Dikum?

I told you this past week was going to be exciting, but even I didn’t expect the awesomeness that was the past 7 or 8 days. I’ve been slowly but surely falling in love with Ethiopia over the past 4 and a half months, and this past week convinced me I am already head over heels!

Things started being awesome last Friday when some volunteers came to visit. They were coming because of the regional Olympics being held in my town that I mentioned last time, and because we would be heading up to the regional capitol later on that weekend to watch the Superbowl. Friday and Saturday were a lot of fun. We hung out, visited the outdoor bazaar that was in my town, went to market, had juice (a drink made from various fruits that’s kind of like a smoothie with no ice), cooked, played games, and had a lot of fun. They were all excited to know that I had seen hyenas in my town, and since all but one hadn’t seen a hyena yet we decided to do something about it: we decided to go hyena hunting. So, on Friday night we took some flashlights and went out in search for the elusive creatures.

Unfortunately or fortunately, we didn’t see any. They had been laying low the few days before, and Friday night was no exception. We gave up after a brief search, and returned home and went to bed with the idea we would try again the next day. Fortunately for us, we never even had to leave my compound the next night to see them! We had been playing a game called Initial Thinking (invented by a lady at my parents’ church) when we got into a huge argument about whether or not “Haile Selassie” counted as “Haile Gebre Selassie” the runner (which was never settled) and whether or not England was a country (we eventually concluded it was a non-sovereign country that was part of a sovereign nation). Because the argument got so loud and intense, we decided to change games to Uker (a card game) to calm down. While we were all quietly playing cards and making “subtle” comments in favor of the arguments we had presented earlier, a hyena began to howl right outside my compound! We all grabbed our flashlights and cameras, tiptoed to the gate, and peered over hoping to catch a glimpse of the animal. We only saw it’s outline before it disappeared in the dark, but we decided to settle in and wait to see what else we could spy. We were heavily rewarded. Over the next 45 minutes we saw not one, not two, but FOUR more hyenas pass by my house. We got great looks at all of them, but they were too far to capture good picture evidence. The flash would only pick up the reflections of their eyes. Check out my wall to see the best picture of the night!

We eventually headed to bed, because we had a big day ahead of us. The next day was Superbowl Sunday and we had managed to secure a venue in Mekele to watch it. We caught a bus the next morning and got to Mekele around 2pm, where we were reunited with the volunteers who lived in other parts of Tigray. We hung out all day, talking, catching up, and eating good ferenji food that we missed in our smaller towns. That evening we watched the Manchester United vs. Arsenal soccer game before heading to the theater to await the Superbowl. The Superbowl didn’t start until 2am our time, and I am sad to say that while I was awake until then, I lost the battle with my eyes right around halfway through the first quarter. I was in and out until right at the start of the fourth quarter when I woke up feeling very refreshed and ready to watch the final minutes. We weren’t actually able to watch whatever channel the Superbowl was shown on in the US, and instead watched it on some sort of international ESPN channel. This meant that we weren’t able to see any of the funny commercials, but it was a great experience nonetheless.

After going back to a friend’s house and trying to crash for a bit, we decided it was time to head back home. On the way out of Mekele, I bought a bike to take back with me to my town. That’s right, yo boy finally got his own wheels again. I was super proud of that. We got back sometime that afternoon and just spent the rest of our day recovering. The next day a couple volunteers came into town to support their friends competing in the Olympics in my town. We spent all day watching various events and supporting our respective towns’ teams. These Olympics are very extensive, and there was everything from, basketball to chess, soccer to Taekwondo, volleyball to badminton and much, much more. But the event of the day had to be the blindfolded race. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there was indeed a blindfolded race. Several Ethiopians put on blindfolds, grabbed a partners hand who wasn’t blindfolded, and then proceeded to race around the track. The 100m, 200m, and 400m races all went without a hitch, but disaster struck during the 1500m. For some reason, the partners all let go on the home stretch and let the blindfolded ones take it home themselves. Unfortunately, the guy in the lead let go a little too early while he was still on the last part of the curve, and, instead of continuing down the track, he began heading straight towards the crowd and the fence that separated us! Everyone screamed at him to get his attention, but, alas, it was to no avail. There were several hurdles lined up right by the fence, and the guy ran straight into these hurdles at top speed. Somehow, the racer managed to trip over the hurdles by flipping completely over them and landing on his feet and back, and so he was unharmed and back on his feet in a second. Like a true champion, he waited for his partner to come and get him, and he finished the race to the insane cheers and laughter coming from the crowd.

The Olympics here in Maychew will continue well on into next week. And I will probably have many different visitors over that time period coming to see the events. It’s truly an exciting time to be in my city, and I can’t wait for whatever other adventures are still in store. I hope you stay tuned in to find whatever else befalls me!

Dehan wialu!

A Question of Ancestry

Hello again!

Is it really time for another blog post? The weeks seem to be flying by faster and faster for me the longer I am here. Two years seems like forever, but I’m starting to realize that my time here will be up before I know it!

Now where were we? Last Tuesday I believe, in the middle of a pretty slow week. The rest of the week went just as slow for me to be honest, but it was an enjoyable slow. My counterpart was in the field for the rest of the week, unfortunately, so I didn’t get as much work done as I would have liked. Nevertheless it was not an entire waste. I was able to interview my best Ethiopian friend Getachew, who works as an English teacher at the local preparatory school. His English is great, so I was able to interview him without my counterpart acting as a translator. In addition, Getachew, in his infinite kindness, offered to translate my interview into Tigrena so that I could at least ask the questions in a way my interviewees could understand. I took him up on his offer, and he did a marvelous job. On the third interview I had today, the questions really helped my interviewee to open up! Of course, I couldn’t exactly understand what he was saying, but that’s why my counterpart was there to help.

Other than that the week was mostly relaxing. Friday was an interesting day. Ever have those days where you wake up and you just KNOW that it was going to be a terrible day. That was Friday for me. I woke up on the complete wrong side of the bed, both figuratively and literally (I almost fell out of my bed). For no apparent reason, I dreaded the coming day and really wanted to just throw the covers back over my head and go back to sleep. But, I dragged myself out of bed, dressed, plastered a smile on my face and got out there… and it actually turned out to be a GREAT day. I got some work done, went for a hike in the nursery where I got some beautiful pictures, had lunch with the Canadian VSO volunteer, finally met the German volunteer in my town, got paid, had some delicious cake, and had a coke so cold it had ice in it (one of the rare times I’ve seen ice). Just goes to show you that the emotional roller coaster of Peace Corps has yet to even out completely.

The rest of the weekend was relatively uneventful. I hung out with the compound and with friends, cooked a little, and just relaxed overall. I am happy to report that both my tigrena and my cooking are starting to slowly improve. I’m not sure when it happened, but it seems that sometime in the past week or so my ears FINALLY got accustomed to the crazy accent of this area. I’m really starting to understand what’s going on at times, and it’s exciting that my conversations are starting to extend past the ridiculously long 30 second greetings that begin every exchange. In addition, my meals have graduated from bland to decent. Nothing too exciting yet (besides fries and chips which aren’t real meals), but after eating I’m actually a little wistful that I’m done. A definite improvement from before, where I usually struggled through the last few bites.

One thing that continues to surprise me about Ethiopians is their overall lack of experience with foreigners. I’ve mentioned before the harassment foreigners get from local children (and sometimes adults) who rarely see anyone not Ethiopian. The cries of “ferenji,” “you,” and “china,” are enough to drive even the most patient volunteer crazy, let alone a visiting tourist. Many of the Peace Corps volunteers, including myself, spend a lot of time talking to random Ethiopian children, introducing ourselves and explaining to them that these comments are disconcerting and a little rude to foreigners and should be substituted with comments such as “Hello” or “How are you”.

I guess I can’t complain too much since I receive much less harassment than my fellow volunteers. Being darker in color let’s me get by with mere double takes and stares from a lot of strangers. But being darker comes with its own set of problems as well, the most awkward of which is the fact most Ethiopians are convinced I have Ethiopian ancestry. I am constantly asked which of my parents are Ethiopian, and it is very difficult to explain to them that my mother is definitely not (since she’s from Germany) and that I have no idea about my dad or his ancestors due to the way slaves were brought to America (though it is unlikely considering that most of the slaves were brought from West Africa). This confuses most Ethiopians, who almost all know the history of several generations of family members back, and I usually just conclude the conversation with a “Sure, I’m probably Ethiopian” in order to satisfy the interrogator.

I finally got the chance to fully explain my ancestral situation to an advanced English class on Monday while visiting volunteers in a neighboring town. I explained to them about the slave trade, the troubled history African-Americans have had over the past several hundred years, and how we got to where we are today. I was surprised to find that they knew a lot more about slaves and civil rights in America than I had previously imagined. They understood fairly well that I had very little chance of ever finding out exactly where my ancestors came from in Africa, that even if I could it probably included several different nations mixed over the past few hundred years, and that instead I identified as an American because that was where I was from. Nevertheless, one of my first questions was from a skeptic who asked why I still looked so Ethiopian then. I told him that it was probably just by luck that my parent’s genes mixed in a way that made me look so awesome and they were finally satisfied.

This upcoming week is going to pretty exciting! I am going to busy with work, the regional Olympics is coming to my town, and there may be a way for me to watch the Superbowl from here. Excited is an understatement. So make sure you tune in next week to see how everything turns out!

See ya later!

Epiphanies, Holy Water, and Wrestling? Yes, please.

Dehan Dikum!!!

How is everyone doing? Good, I hope. It’s that time for another update of life here in Ethiopia, and what a week it has been!

Last time we chatted (or more accurately, I chatted at you), was last Monday afternoon. Tuesday started like any other day. I went to the office, sat around for a little while before I got bored and decided to work on my CNA at home. As I may have mentioned before, my primary objective for the first three months of my time here at site is to conduct a CNA, or Community Needs Assessment. This is a report where I do a lot of research and interview community members in order to assess the environmental needs of the community and come up with potential projects for the next two years. The report is very important for helping me integrate into my community and to get an idea of what I’ll be doing in the future. On my way home, I decided to check my P.O. Box, but, as usual, it was empty. Imagine my surprise then, when I got home and my friend called to tell me I had a package! I almost ran back to the Post Office in my excitement and, sure enough, there was a package from my parents that hadn’t been processed yet. Including stuff in the second package I got from them yesterday, I got candy (skittles, sour punch straws, gushers, fruit snacks, air heads), chips, seasonings, and much more. You can imagine how excited I was to finally be receiving mail!

After my high finally wore off, I felt inspired and got to work on my CNA. I’m still in the research phase, so I wrote up the interview I was going to use to gather my information. I brought the questions to the office the next day and went over them with my counterpart and supervisor, who both thought the questions were thorough and comprehensive. I proceeded to interview my counterpart that same day and just like that my data collection had started. That afternoon I also visited the prepatory school again. It felt good to have accomplished something since the week would be cut short by the holiday celebrated most in this area: Timkat.

“Timkat” means epiphany. The holiday celebrates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, where the dove descended from heaven and a voice from the heavens exclaimed, “This is my beloved son, in who I am well pleased” and everyone around realized that Jesus was more than an ordinary man. It is an important holiday all over Ethiopia, but it seems to be especially important and celebrated in Southern Tigray. Celebrations began late Thursday for some, and by Friday the holiday was in full swing with the biggest celebrations on Saturday. Andrew, the volunteer just south of me in the small town of Endodo came up for the holiday. Friday celebrations consisted mostly of a trip down to the church for service in the morning, where we listened to the priests preach in the spiritual language of Ge’ez and were sprayed with blessed water (to celebrate the baptism). The rest of the day was taken up by lots of socializing and, of course, lots of eating. A big topic of conversation was Saturday, which promised dancing in the streets, lots of celebrating, and traditional wrestling. Saturday did not disappoint.

I woke up Saturday morning super excited about what was to come. I had decided I wanted some Ethiopian clothes to blend in better for the holiday, so I decided to buy the traditional Raya outfit (Raya is this area of Southern Tigray) which consists of a gildim and boffet… The outfit is awesome and I will upload pictures of it to my Facebook soon. After dressing in my traditional clothing, I met my friend Getachew and began heading down the main road to the church at the northern end of town to begin celebrating…. We didn’t get very far. Everyone in Maychew was coming up from that church in a huge dancing procession on their way to St. Mikael’s church on the other end of town. Everyone was dancing, singing, and otherwise having a good time. It was the biggest celebration I’d seen so far in Ethiopia and it was amazing fun. I took videos and pictures, which will, of course, be uploaded to Facebook as well. The rest of the day was just spent dancing, eating, celebrating, and religious celebrations. I didn’t get a chance to see the traditional wrestling, unfortunately, but there’s always next year for that. By 6 in the evening I was exhausted and decided to skip the concert and hang out with some of the fam at home.

I thought I’d be able to rest up on Sunday, but then I remembered that I had a wedding to attend! I’d been invited to one by a friend and of course I wanted to go. The wedding ceremonies here are more of a celebration than a solemn ceremony like in the US. On the morning of the wedding, two parties are prepared, one at the house of the bride and the other at the house of the groom. The bride is in her house until the groom comes to pick her up in a huge procession of cars sometimes that day. When the groom arrives to pick up the bride, they have the first party complete with dancing, food, and celebrations. Once they have had enough there, they all pile in the cars and proceed to drive to the grooms’ house. They drive all through the town, honking the cars and letting as many people as possible know they are wedding. From there, they arrive at the grooms’ house for the second party, where they eat more, dance more, and celebrate even more. A short and private ceremony is held where the rings are exchanged and the promises made, and then it’s back to celebrating. Interestingly, the bride looks very glum and upset the entire day. In Ethiopia the bride is expected to be sad at her wedding, because while she is indeed starting a new life, she is also leaving her family behind and is expecting to mourn for this loss accordingly. Whenever the happy new couple has had enough, they head out for their wedding night. Traditionally, there are more customs associated with this part of the wedding, but those are a little graphic for this blog. If you’re interested in what happens there, ask me about it sometime.

And that just about brings us to today. Work has been a little slow because my counterpart is in the field, so I have just been preparing for more interviews and exploring more of Maychew. I seem to find a new corner of the city every day. As always, I miss and love everyone back in the states terribly. Hit me up whenever you have time and thanks for reading!

Ciao!

Celebrations, Trials, and More Celebrations

Hello again!

So I apologize for missing last week, but honestly it’s not a big deal. Besides a couple major events, the past two weeks have been relatively calm.

I last left you on the week of Ethiopian Christmas. Wednesday through Friday were pretty uneventful. I went to the office every morning where I prepared for my installation meeting the following week. A couple of representatives from Peace Corps were coming to “install” me into my community, which is where they give an hour long presentation that explained why I was here and how I fit into the community. It was an important meeting, because, since the counterpart Peace Corps had trained left before I got to my site, no one in the office really understood what I was doing. After a couple of arguments over both minor and major details, we managed to secure a venue and invited most of the people we wanted to come and I deemed my work week successful. On Friday I had some stomach issues, but those cleared up by that afternoon (I blew chunks) and I went to bed excited for the next day.

Ethiopian Christmas did not disappoint. While there were no extravagant gifts given or crazy parties (at least in my compound), the food and socializing was just as elaborate as in the states. A chicken and sheep that were bought the day before had disappeared almost overnight (I only caught the end of the sheep slaughter), and so I ate durowot (chicken), dulet, (sheep intestines/stomach), and tibs (rest of the sheep meat) until I thought I would burst. These are dishes that are served almost exclusively on special occasions, and as you can expect they were quite delicious. While chicken was a regular part of my diet in the states, I rarely get it here since I’d have to buy and slaughter a whole chicken if I wanted some. As I mentioned, the meat is special here and so it isn’t regularly served in any restaurants or sold at the butcher. Besides eating, we relaxed in the compound and went out a few times for juice and a delicious peanut butter tea. Overall a very enjoyable holiday, without stress or struggle…. Except for the nosebleeds that is. I forgot to mention that I also contracted some sort of upper respiratory tract infection that caused me to have a super bloody nose that would occasionally bleed profusely for a few minutes at a time.

The next few days went just as relaxing. I finished preparations for the meeting and my infection cleared up by Monday, so by Wednesday I was in high spirits. I woke up Thursday morning ready for my big meeting, dressed up nicely, headed to the office and called my counterpart…. Only to discover that he was 18km away and wasn’t going to make the meeting. To make matters worse over half of the people I invited were also abroad and couldn’t come, and the room we had set aside for the meeting was never officially set up. 10 minutes before the meeting was going to start I had no room, only a handful of people, and only very light control over the extreme frustration bubbling inside of me. Just as I gave up and resigned myself to disaster, however, my supervisor came to the rescue and secured a completely different room and invited extra people to the meeting. The meeting went extremely successfully and the lunch Peace Corps paid for afterward was delicious. Later on that day, two of my Peace Corps friends who were on their way elsewhere stopped in my town for the night, and so Thursday turned out to be a good day indeed.

The rest of the weekend was very relaxing, and so I decided to try my hand at cooking. While I didn’t fail miserably, the meals definitely left something to be desired. I don’t have very many spices, so most of what I cooked turned out good, but boring. I tried though, and I am determined to be a good cook once I leave Ethiopia. After my pitiful attempts at cooking all weekend, I was extremely excited about my invitation from the VSO volunteer in my town to a campfire where they would be roasting two sheep. I was really looking forward to this event all weekend, and it definitely did not disappoint. We ate, talked, danced, and just had a really good time for hours. I got the chance to meet a lot of the VSO volunteer’s colleagues on the campus he works at, plus a few surprise ferenjis! These four were from the Philippines, and while most of them were leaving after a few days there was one that would be staying for about a year. I also learned of a German girl working at the Catholic school in town, and just like that I discovered more ferenjis than I ever new existed in my little town of Maychew. It’s always exciting to meet people from all over the world when you’re travelling, and I suspect we will all get along great. Overall, it was a VERY good wrap-up to a great weekend.

That’s all I have for now, but be looking out for another update next week! …Or if I’m being honest, maybe the week after. Love and miss you all, and leave a comment below. Also, if you have a skype account send me a message on faceboook and maybe we can chat sometime!

Happy New Year! What Will 2012 Bring? Stay Tuned to Find Out!

Happy New Year!!!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is now 2012 and the wonderfulness that was 2011 has come to a close. 2011 was full of many important changes in my life, the most dramatic of which included graduating college and then leaving my friends and family to come live in Ethiopia. It’s weird to think it, but with my two year commitment here I probably won’t live in America at all this entire year. It’s not like I’ve never gone a whole year without America (considering I lived in Germany for 7 seven years), but it’s been a long time and I never really considered the idea before.

At any rate, another not busy week has gone by in Ethiopia with adventures and free time galore. Last week was my first attempt at starting to settle in and it went…. Interestingly. Setting up my house is something I have been taking my time with, buying one or two necessities every day, and my pantry is slowly starting to fill. Of course, that doesn’t mean much since I didn’t have a clue what to cook with the few things I’ve managed to assemble. I’ve been doing pretty well off of bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, eating out a little, and every once in a while braving the kitchen. I haven’t gotten most of the supplies needed to really cook until recently, so last week I decided to make spaghetti. That went ok, except that I didn’t make enough to really cover the pasta so it was a little dry. Either way I was pretty proud of myself.

Things on the work front have been even slower, but I’m definitely starting to make progress. I visited the preparatory school last Wednesday where I met the environmental club teachers and practiced English with some of the schools. Thursday I was assigned a new counterpart (yay!) and we came up with an action plan and got to know each other a little bit. Tomorrow, I plan on returning to the school and starting the prep for my installation meeting (which is where Peace Corps comes and explains what I’m doing here) next Thursday. Overall, not too bad.

The big events of the week were this past weekend and today actually. This past weekend was New Year’s obviously, and I joined up with volunteers Alamatta to the south of here to celebrate. I actually left Thursday afternoon and spent the night in Korem before heading to Alamatta on Friday, and it was a really great time. We cooked together a lot, and they gave me my first real cooking lessons here. I learned how to make tortillas from scratch, stir fry, French fries and shiro (a local Ethiopian food). Not too impressive to most people, but this was a major accomplishment for a guy who spent most of his college career living off of Chef Boyardee, box dinners, and takeout. The few things I did know how to make (mostly just chili, tacos, spaghetti) are much tougher to cook here considering the difficulty in getting meat (and by that I mean I am still terrified to go to the butcher) and the fact I don’t have a meat grinder. I used to be irked by the corporate America Wal-Mart symbolizes… Now I find myself wondering what it would be like to walk down those hallowed aisles again, picking out my favorite artery clogging junk foods and drooling over the heart-stopping, greasy packaged delicacies…

But I digress. New Year’s was great fun nonetheless and me and my four other volunteers brought in the New Year with poker and some delicious beverages. After the countdown we all promptly fell asleep in a very anti-climactic moment but relaxing welcome to the new year.

Today, was anything but anti-climactic. It was a small holiday here in Ethiopia (one of the many days dedicated to saints) and I celebrated with a friend. We watched the processional full of dancing and singing people on the way to the church and then joined them there. We listened to the pastor talk, watched people wash in water believed to have special healing powers, and laughed at the ferenjis (foreigners) who were so much more obvious than me and my Peace Corps friend visiting. Afterwards, we ate lunch and talked for a little while before I decided to mosey on over to the school. I was intercepted by a coworker I thought was going to give me a ride, but instead drove with me and a few others along an incredibly scary dirt road (Ethiopian version of the roller coaster) where I had ANOTHER lunch and more talking. By the time I got home an hour or so later I was pretty tired from my day and just relaxed for the next few hours.

It’s only Tuesday, but there’s a lot to look forward to this week. Work is steadily picking up and this Saturday is actually the Ethiopian Christmas, which is sure to mean a very interesting and crazy weekend for me. Look for my update next week to see how my first major Ethiopian holiday goes! Until then, love and miss you guys as always and feel free to drop me comments here, Facebook, or e-mail at any time! I have lots of free time to respond. See ya later!